Friday, October 15, 2010

It was nice to get a dose of good old nostalgic punk rock. It made me feel 15 again. Maybe I’ll go stand aimlessly outside 7-11 all night tonight just to keep the buzz going. Or I could just stay home and watch Suburbia or Beavis & Butthead or Clerks.

Do kids still hang out in front of Convenience stores? I once got a letter banning me from every 7-11 in Burlington because they said I harassed one of their employees. All I did was call him Pickle. Everyone called him Pickle. I’m not sure why. He was a greasy little blonde guy. Maybe it was that green 7-11 shirt. Anyway it certainly didn’t warrant a city wide ban. It’s not like Pickle worked in every store. Jesus, you’d think I robbed the place or something.

Not too long after I got the Pickle letter that 7-11 closed down. I’d like to say that it suffered from the lack of my patronage but the truth is I never bought much more than a freezy there and I didn’t even stop going even after I was banned. Now it’s a Big Bear.

This isn’t it. I think this is the shittier one in Hamilton.

You know what else I saw at the show? I saw a girl wearing a Dayglo Abortions shirt!

File Photo: Some of their best work.

I’m not really sure why she was wearing that shirt. She was young but no girl could possibly like the Dayglo Abortions. You don’t think so?

See.

See.

I stopped listening to the Dayglos the moment I gained one iota of maturity. I can only assume that the girl I saw wearing the shirt has never actually heard the band. I’m guessing she just found the shirt at Vallue Village and thought it looked cool and offensive and might help her land a dreamy punk rock boyfriend.

Little does she know that the only thing that shirt will attract is a 14 year old cretin who has traveled through time from 1989 to fart on her head while she sleeps.

Sigh. Well at least it’s good to know that even though this can probably be found in the punk section of HMV.

And this can probably be bought at Clik Clak.

Punk is STILL not dead.

It just looks a lot more like your new neighbor that wants to have you and your wife over for a BBQ some time.

You still got it Greg!

Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m going to celebrate by going out and calling some guy Pickle.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

It’s a British miniseries by Shane Meadows that’s a spin off from his movie This Is England. It’s not quite as good as the film. It’s got some of the same characters but they all look terrible. Woody is sporting the worst Mod haircut since Paul Weller found a pudding bowl and a pair of scissors.

Ithought he looked much better as a skinhead.

Smell has found a way to make herself even more creepy and unappealing.

File Photo: Boner Antidote.

And everyone’s favorite little baby skin Shaun…

He grows up into a sullen, zitty faced teen that doesn’t dress sharp and yells at his mum all the time.

Still, it’s a good watch. But anyway, what does this have to do with today’s Magic Internet Question? Well, there was a scene in the show where Gadget (the fat one with the sweat band) shags a right old hound and she leaves him with a big hickey on his neck. And that got me thinking. In fact it caused me to remember a rather frightening event I witnessed as a youth. I was about 13 or 14 and I was at a party being thrown by a rather dumb neighbor girl who will remain nameless. At the party I saw a girl with her head right up under her boy friend’s shirt. She stayed like that for what seemed like hours. When she finally emerged, she lifted his shirt to show everyone that she had spelled out the boy’s own name on his chest in hickeys! Big letters too! And if you’re shaking your head saying it can’t be done, I’m telling you it can and here is proof. This guy got someone to suck Jesus onto his belly!

This is what people resort to when they can’t have sex before marriage.

So what’s the deal with hickeys? They seem to be a sad, disgusting, regrettable part of youth throughout history. But for how long? Come on Magic Internet. Put your googles on and tell me.

Magic Internet Answer: The question you have posed to me today is quite a paradox, Johnny. That is, it is stupid yet difficult. Let’s start by analyzing exactly what a hickey is. A hickey is a temporary bruise or mark on the skin caused by suction or biting. It can also be accompanied by red speckles. These speckles are known as petechiae. Petechiae are small purpuric eruptions caused by the hemorrhage of capillary blood vessels near the surface of the skin.

It is impossible to say when the first hickey was given or received. Hickies are synonymous with kissing and kissing dates back to primitive times when a mother would chew food and pass it to her infant’s mouth to eat. Over time man has evolved to the point where machines now pre-chew baby food and kissing has become an intimate display of affection for adults. Hickies however are shunned by most adults. They are usually looked upon as the accessories of adolescent ignoramuses’.

Or as warning signs that the marked individual is a super huge slut.

We can however look at when the term hickey came into use. The origin of the word is American and came into use some were around 1905 to 1910. It was originally used as a phrase to describe an unknown object. Over time this phrase evolved into doohickey, which is still used today. For example, this doohickey here is used for peeling hotdogs.

By the 1950s Americans were using the term hicky or hickies to refer to facial blemishes. Evidence of this can be seen in this ad for Fleischmann’s Yeast.

It is easy to see how the term hickey could make the jump from describing a pimple to describing a love bite. Young women of the 1950s were expected to be pure of virtue and if a 50s girl was asked about a mark on her neck by her stern pipe smoking father she would most definitely try to explain it away as a hickey or skin blemish. It also explains why so many 50s girls wore these.

But it doesn’t in anyway explain this.

At least women of the 50s had a flattering method of concealment for hickies. Men had to make do with the stifling turtle neck or appropriately named dickie. But then again dickies are not just for the gents.

You may have noticed that I also used the term love bite. Although hickey is a known phrase in the United Kingdom, love bite is the more commonly used term over there. Local English rock band Judas Priest even wrote a song about love bites.

Bonus: Double guitar!

But if you want a song about hickies. You won’t find one in the UK. You will have to turn to American hip hop singer Little Shawn.

And with that, there is nothing more to say about hickeys.

After seeing that I feel bad for thinking little Shaun from This Is England ’86 was lame. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to head out to Party Barn. Pick up one of these.

One of these.

And one of these.

And dress up for Halloween as a chain smoking hickey covered skinhead! And what do the kids get when they knock on my door? Either a Bad Manners single.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Now I’m sure a lot of my American readers are putting down their firearms or foot long hamburgers from Carl’s Jr.

Shut up, I know you’re eating them right now.

And wondering, What in the hell is that crazy Canuck talkin’ about? Thanksgiving ain’t for another month. Yee haw and tar nation. Well not here. In Canada we celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October. I like it that way. It spaces out the holidays so you can enjoy each one individually. In America they have Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November. I don’t know why. Maybe it takes them longer to clean (oil) and set the table.

One of those elephant guns would make a great horn of plenty. Does anyone actually put one of those horns on their table at Thanksgiving?

They used to give us pictures of them to colour at school around Thanksgiving (Way to phone it in Mrs. Burnell.) but I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen one. I suppose I could make my own. Like this one made out of what appears to be the Sears catalogue underwear section.

But back to the whole Thanksgiving in November thing .That’s 4 weeks before Christmas! That just seems like too much to handle. You’re forcing yourself into a marathon of over indulgence. You’d just be finishing your Thanksgiving leftovers as you’re putting the Christmas Turkey in the oven. Well I hope they’re all asking Santa for the Shake Weight cause they’re gonna need it.

Or you could go out and hunt your own turkey. That’s good exercise. Here’s a little song off Ted Nuggent’s Hunt Music album to get you in the mood.

Just don’t get too caught up in the hunt or you may find yourself hunting nature’s greatest prey…

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

You know what creeps me out? That baby on the front of the Gerber baby food jars.

Look at it. It looks evil. It has those arched eyebrows and that creepy mouth. It looks like it’s about to hiss or show you that it has snake teeth. Like that baby in V.

Wow! Did you see the second one she pumped out? I think they used a Stretch Monster doll for that shot.

That clip could also appear in the deluxe box set for the movie twins. Labeled as the deleted director’s cut for the birthing of Julius and Vincent Benedict.

It’s like I’m looking into a mirror!

But enough about that. Let me get to today’s question. Just who is that baby? Is it as evil as it looks? Is it an alien lizard baby? Did it at least go the route of most child starts and become addicted to drugs/rob someone or something at gunpoint? Maybe it doesn’t exist at all. Maybe it’s just an on-the-telephone doodle drawn by a sick and twisted mind. Tell me Magic Internet! Tellllllll Meeeeeeeeeeeee! (Cue gathering clouds and lightening.)

Magic Internet Answer: You think that baby is creepy? Try being the internet for a day. You’ll come out worse than 'Nam Ben. Well at least this is an easy one. First, the Gerber baby was not drawn by a sick and twisted person as you suggested.

File Photo: Not the Gerber baby artist.

The Gerber baby was drawn by Boston cartoonist Dorothy Hope Smith in 1928. She also drew this poster titled Don’t Kill Her Daddy with Carless Talk.

Morbid? Perhaps but sick and twisted? No. Dorothy drew the Gerber baby sketch as a submission to a contest that Fremont Caning Company had to find a baby face that they felt most represented their new baby food product. And the sketch won.

No Johnny, I don’t think that meant Gerber contained lizard meat.

Dorothy had said that if they chose the sketch she would finish it professionally but Gerber chose to use it as it was and that is the same sketch that remains on Gerber products today.

File Photo: Second Place.

But who was the baby in the drawing? The Gerber baby’s name is Ann Turner and she was 5 months old when the sketch was done. Ann Turner is still alive today. Although now she goes by the name Ann Turner Cook.

In her youth, Cook attended the University of Florida and studied education and English Journalism. She went on to receive a master’s degree in English Education. In 1966 she joined the English Department of Hillsborough High School. The original Hillsborough High School is said to be the oldest high school in America and Hillsborough High School as it stands now is one of the oldest high schools in the south.

Hillsborough High School, built in 1928. The same year the Gerber baby drawing was made. (Cue the Unsolved Mysteries music.)

Ann Turner Cook taught at Hillsborough for 26 years before retiring and turning her attention to writing mystery novels. It’s difficult to judge the quality of her writing without having read any of her work but I will say that the book covers and titles leave a lot to be desired.

No, I don’t think Dorothy Hope Smith drew that creepy bulky Ken doll on the cover Johnny. She died in 1955.

Yes, I suppose that ghost does look a little like David Lee Roth on the Cover of Eat Em & Smile

No, Johnny David Lee Roth isn’t dead… yet.

There is a handful of glowing reader reviews for Mrs. Turner Cook’s novels on Amazon.com, mostly from people that grew up in the area of Florida that she writes about. There is also a rather scathing review from Publishers Weekly.

In Cook's lackluster second novel featuring newspaper reporter Brandy O'Bannon (after 2001's Trace Their Shadows), Brandy and her husband, John, come to the proudly old-fashioned community of Cedar Key, Fla., for a long weekend. Intrigued by a classified ad asking the whereabouts of a woman and child who vanished in the area during a hurricane 20 years earlier, Brandy thinks there may be a story in it. John, hoping for a romantic weekend, is bored and irritable. Much of the action centers on the town's historic hotel: the private investigator who placed the ad is staying there, as are Brandy and John; the dining-room waitress may be the missing child; a skeleton found in a basement cistern may be the missing woman. Like many a plucky young heroine before her, Brandy plunges headlong into this multilayered mystery, ignoring police warnings and her increasingly resentful husband. An overly busy plot, alas, is weighed down with limp prose and repetition, including scenes of Brandy making endless lists of what she has learned and what she plans to do next. The tantalizing glimpses of the charming Cedar Key, deliberately turning its back on the tourist dollar, make readers wish for a stronger sense of place.

Hmm, a tad harsh maybe? Regardless of the quality of Ann Turner Cook’s writing I would recommend picking up one of her novels. At the very least you could tell people that you have read a mystery novel written by the Gerber baby.

Wow, thanks Magic I! Who knew that the Gerber baby would go on to do anything more than creep me out. Is there anything else I should now about her?

Magic Internet Bonus Answer: Well, here is something you may find amusing. I have a special searching mechanism called Google that I am sure you are unaware of. I attempted to use my Google to locate a picture of Ann Turner Cook’s mystery novel heroin Brandy O’Bannon. I was unsuccessful but the search did generate some strange results. The first page of photos was mostly pictures of Mrs. Turner Cook and her book covers. But by page 4 the results started to get very strange. Have a look.

Captain Kirk drinking brandy.

Tar Man from Return of the Living Dead.

The DVD cover for The Ape.

A group photo of dirty 70s Jersey Shore hippy band The Looking Glass.

And this cool customer.

Perhaps I have uncovered a mystery for Brandy to solve in Ann’s next novel?